

A professor named Ronald Rohrer, along with a group of his students, developed a circuit simulation program called CANCER (Computer Analysis of Nonlinear Circuits, Excluding Radiation). The story of SPICE begins at the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1960s. Put simply, it is a computer program that has been designed to replicate and simulate analog electronic circuits (specifically integrated circuits) as well as to predict the behavior of low- to mid- frequency circuits. What is SPICE?Īccording to the official website, SPICE “ is a general-purpose circuit simulation program for nonlinear dc, nonlinear transient, and linear ac analyses”. Integrated circuits cannot be breadboarded prior to production (unlike board-level designs made up of discrete pieces), so what is the best way to simulate them? The solution comes in the form of the computer program SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis). Due to the high costs of photolithographic masks and additional production materials, it is highly preferred to have integrated circuits as close to perfect as possible before they are constructed. It is no secret that simulation and testing is an important part of designing circuits.
